Pentagon Puts 8,500 Troops on Alert to Bolster NATO Near Ukraine
- Troops needed if alliance activates response force: spokesman
- ‘There is time and space’ for diplomacy still, Kirby Says
The U.S. is putting as many as 8,500 troops on heightened alert for deployment to bolster NATO forces in Eastern Europe if needed as Russian troops mass on Ukraine’s borders, according to the Defense Department.
“It’s very clear that the Russians have no intention right now of de-escalating,” so it makes “prudent sense” to give U.S. military personnel time to prepare if NATO activates its Response Force along the alliance’s eastern flank, Defense Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters Monday at the Pentagon.
Kirby repeatedly said the troops aren’t being deployed yet and wouldn’t be sent into Ukraine. He said “there is time and space” for diplomacy but that Russia continues to increase the forces arrayed along its border with Ukraine -- which top 100,000 -- and in Belarus.
The readiness alert indicates that President Joe Biden, who conferred with his national security advisers over the weekend, wants to send a stronger military message to Russian President Vladimir Putin even though his administration has repeatedly said the U.S. would respond to an invasion with stringent economic sanctions rather than by sending troops into Ukraine. Russia has denied it intends to invade.
State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters Monday that the readiness alert “is about defense and deterrence.” He said the Russians may well complain” about these efforts, but “it is their aggression that has precipitated” the crisis.
On Sunday, the State Department ordered family members of diplomats at its embassy in Kyiv to leave “due to the continued threat of Russian military action.”
— With assistance by Peter Martin
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